Whimsical ‘Ribbit' gets an extended stay at Airlie

Wednesday

Aug 7, 2013 at 1:00 PMAug 7, 2013 at 1:42 PM

Many a kid has followed a list of rhyming riddles through Airlie Gardens on a frog hunt.

By Justin LacyStarNews Correspondent

This summer, many a kid has followed a list of rhyming riddles through the lush 67 acres of Airlie Gardens on a frog hunt, dodging giant sunflowers and wandering pond-side in hopes of tracking down all 16 web-footed hoppers to win a small prize. These aren't your ordinary frogs, however. These frogs wear dresses. They paint. They dance. They meditate. They wail away on slide trombone. These are the larger-than-life copper frogs of Wilmington sculptor Andy Cobb, and they appeal to more than just children. In fact, “Ribbit the Exhibit” has been so well received that Airlie Gardens is extending the exhibition, which was slated to close Aug. 18, through September. “We've found that it really has universal appeal,” said Airlie Garden's Janine Powell. “Kids, adults, everyone loves it.”Beneath Spanish-moss-draped live oak branches, three frogs named Trombone Shorty, Wayne Shorter and Miles Davis play actual horns, their eyes closed, tapping a flipper along with an imaginary beat. Down the path, a bird-watching frog watches a pond through binoculars. Follow his line of sight, and you might discover two swans slumbering on the shoreline. No matter what they're doing – fishing, dancing or pushing a lawnmower over the last patch of overgrown grass – each frog appears content, with beaming eyes and slightly smiling faces.“I'm really pushing hard to make people smile,” Cobb said. “And when I go over to the garden and see these kids having a big time …” It pays off, big time. Talking to Cobb, you get a sense of why he's been making copper frogs full time for the past 18 years. It's not for the money; that's just a necessary variable in the equation. It's the reactions. “They're going, ‘Gladys, come here! See this thing,'” Cobb said. “And then they're going, ‘Holly smokes: Look! Look at his hands! Look at his feet! His eyes!' So they're discovering things, little details that I put back in there, hoping someone would discover. For me, to watch people discover those things is just fantastic, because it transcended. That whole idea that I was having fun at the shop, going, ‘Wait till somebody sees this!' It's motivation.” To become the frog man he is today, Cobb pulled a complete 180 from the direction he was headed after graduating from the University of North Carolina with a degree in business. Twenty years ago Cobb was a salesman of medical equipment, but after he began sculpting small copper fish for friends as a hobby, the artist's life began to look more and more attractive. A Wrightsville Beach flood was the catalyst that pushed him over the edge.“I was living at Wrightsville Beach,” Cobb said, “and the corporate office said, ‘We got a sales meeting today.' I said, ‘You guys watch the news? I mean, my house is underwater, I'm kind of busy.' ‘Well, you're still expected to be at the sales meeting.' So that made it kind of easy. I had run the numbers and had been dreaming about doing it anyway, so that was kind of the last motivator. That was the day I just decided not to go back and do that stuff anymore.”Financially, the first two years were a struggle. But when Cobb debuted his 5-foot-tall, cartoonish frogs at the original Caffe Phoenix, he sold every one. Frogs have been his business ever since. “I start with the feet, then I really just go up,” Cobb said. “I make the legs next, and quite often I go ahead and get the legs and feet together, so I'm starting to visualize this thing.” Cobb compares the rest of the process to origami – cutting out the frog forms in flat sheets of copper, then folding them to create the figure. “When I first started,” Cobb said, “I used to try to beat the copper into submission. Flat copper doesn't want to do that, so now I don't ask it to do things it can't do. I basically visualize how to bend and fold this thing, and then seam it.” Cobb gets that ancient-penny-green patina through an oxidation process. Then he's on to the little things, like the knuckles in the frog's carefully crafted hands. Sometimes he adds clothes – that's right, there are actually naked frogs beneath those jackets and dresses. Then there are all the props – the spear gun and fish held by the proud scuba-diving frog at the mouth of the pond-side pergola. The paintbrush made of copper-wire bristles in one frog's dainty hand as he paints the pergola scene en plein air. For Cobb, this is the fun part, the part that makes it all worthwhile. This is playtime. “You get to the point at the end when you get to make the … fun things,” Cobb said. It's just like being a child.”